Audit committee characteristics and financial restatement incidence in the emerging market

Abstract

This paper discusses issues concerning audit committee characteristics that lead to the occurrence of financial restatements in Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs). The audit committee characteristics were measured using size, independence, frequency of meetings, audit tenure, gender, expertise, age, ethnicity, legal qualifications, and political connections. The data in this study were extracted from the annual reports of 100 firms that had restated their financial statement between 2006 and 2015, and a total of 200 non-restatement firms were matched and observed as control firms. Using univariate and multivariate statistical analysis, the results evince that there is a significant association between audit committee size and frequency of meetings as well as ethnicity and political connections of the audit committee members and the occurrence of financial restatements in Malaysian PLCs. However, the remaining audit committee characteristics show insignificant association with the occurrence of financial restatements. Consistent with Wan Mohammad, Wasiuzzaman, and Nik Salleh (2016), the results show that larger and more rigorous audit committees can strengthen the monitoring role and consequently reduce the occurrence of financial restatements. In addition, the results evince that Malay members in the audit committee have widespread political connections, which negatively affect the decisions by the audit committee, thereby increasing the occurrence of financial restatements.